The New York City-based MetaProp Accelerator (which I’m pleased to note calls my alma mater Columbia University home!) has announced its 2017-18 class of real estate industry tech startups. Selected from hundreds of applications that the accelerator received from 25 countries, the 8 winners include a homegrown New York City construction industry startup called OnSiteIQ which is aiming to be the Google Streetview for construction project sites.

Calling itself “a progress documentation and safety analysis platform for developers, construction managers, safety consultants, and contractors,” the platform “leverages computer vision algorithms to automatically map 360-degree walkthrough videos to the floor plan and provide a seamless, remote progress, quality, and safety inspection capability.” It collects that walkthrough data from project sites monthly and provides users with the ability to flag issues as they pop up in the field and share them among key project team members in real time. Pretty neat!

Unearth, as you may recall, uses a combination of drones, remote sensors, and Internet of Things principles to centralize communications between field and home office personnel in order to keep teams on schedule and on budget by driving better, data-driven decision-making about projects.

In fact, at the time, we wrote here at AEC Labs that we “expect to see many more of these types of software platforms and solutions brought to market, soon, in a variety of different contexts.” So at least one of 2017 predictions about #constructech seems to be coming true!

But turning briefly back to MetaProp: the seven other startups that will join OnSiteIQ at Columbia as part of this year’s accelerator class are:

BlocPower: Technology platform that aims to make buildings and communities smarter, greener, and healthier. (Based in NYC).

Doorport: Next-generation building entry tool that’s “creating an end-to-end building management platform to provide the best residential living experience.” (NYC)

About The Author

Stephen Del Percio is the founder of AEC Labs. He's a civil engineer by training with nearly two decades of experience in the trenches of the construction industry, both as a project manager and an attorney. Stephen also took a two-year sabbatical from the industry inside Amazon.com, an experience which sparked his interested in how tech could be applied to, and ultimately improve, the AEC industry. You can find him on social media below or send him an email to connect!